Ups and Downs of the week.

 Red Sox – Pretty sure bet they’ll make the post-season. Close call with Lester getting drilled tonight, but it looks like he’ll be ok. Just hope no one else gets hurt between now and Game 1 of the first series.

  Sudden death – Saw my neighbor’s (Neighbor-A) dog get run over today. He was an old, old English Setter who was deaf as a post and had a bad habit of sleeping behind cars. I nearly ran him over with the Z4 once. I had to jack up the car to get him out from under it. My neighbor across the street (Neighbor-B) wasn’t so lucky tonight. He was very distraught about it. The dog’s owner was sad, but knew it would happen sooner or later. It’s a shame poor Neighbor-B has to deal with the memory of running the dog over, though. 

 Autumn – Love this time of year. Not as pretty here as in New England, but the weather is awesome and harvest will be starting soon.

Ups and Downs of the week.

  Dad – Home again. Hopefully for good this time.

  The Gates Affair – Will it ever end?

 Vacation – We just booked a trip to Germany for October (after Oktoberfest). We’ll be doing the Munich, Nürnberg, Prague, Vienna loop. I am so looking forward to it. 

   Red Sox - Playing a little better. They picked up some talent today with Victor Martinez and Casey Kotchman. I felt bad for poor Adam LaRoche, who barely had time to unpack and probably didn’t dirty a single Sox uniform. I know he was psyched to be on the Red Sox and now he’s in Atlanta. Still, it’s his former team, so he’s come full circle, I guess. Sox are now just one and a half games back (1 game in the loss column).

 Decent Summer Weather – July has come and gone and not one day above 90. I can deal with 80s all summer long.

  Illinois Highway Department – I guess I shouldn’t expect much out of a group who believes the best way to repair a highway is to pour some tar in a hole and then fill it with peastone. It keeps the same crew employed filling the same holes week after week and it helps keep the windshield and autobody folks busy repairing glass and paint. Still, today I had to deal with stop and go traffic for 9 miles because they closed one lane of I-57 for that distance even though there was only one small crew working at the very end of the stretch. Why they needed 9 miles of lane closure for a single work crew is beyond me, but I guess I shouldn’t be looking for intelligence or consideration from this bunch of morons.

Ups and Downs of the week.

     Red Sox – They kicked butt for a bit, then blew a 10-1 7th inning lead in one game, then came back from 5-1 in the 9th to win the next game, and then blew a chance to win tonight at home. Typical Red Sox roller coaster. I’d sure would enjoy another 10+ game winning streak about now.

  Michael Jackson Coverage – Enough already. You can’t escape the hype over every snippet of tape the newsies dig up. CNN (Celebrity News Network) is one of the worst.

 Dad - Home since Thursday and doing better.

  The Sanford Saga – Infidelity is nothing new. Why do we treat every occurrence like it’s the first time it ever happened? If Sanford abused his position as governor or misused public funds, then can the bastard and move on. Personally, I couldn’t care less what his wife thinks about the whole thing. It’s not my business.

  Cool Weather – This week has been a nice break from the heat and humidity of recent weeks. I can deal with mid-to-high 70s and low 80s.

At the risk of becoming dull, I have one more set of pics from our walk today in Central Park. The weather was mid-70s, dry, and sunny. In other words, perfect. The park was very busy today.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Long weekend – I need it. Starting Thursday we’ll be gone for most of the next three weeks. Thursday we’re off to NYC to BookExpo. We come back on Monday and leave again on Thursday for London, Ontario for Sarah’s cousin’s wedding. We’re back on that Sunday and gone again on Wednesday to Chicago for the HNS conference, finally coming home the following Monday. Lots of travel and not much rest.

   Dad – Back in the hospital again. Nothing too serious; just the same buildup of fluids that makes it hard for him to breathe. Thing is, this is exactly what convinced the docs he needed heart valve replacement way back in October. Now after 7 months of recovery from that, he’s having the same symptoms. Modern medicine is still a lot of guesswork. Dad should be home again on tomorrow, though.

 Red Sox - Despite tonight’s loss to the Mets (they got outpitched and Lugo was playing, so there you go), they still swept the Jays this week and are a half game out of first. Jays and Yankmees both lost tonight as well, so no ground lost.

 Weather – What a great week for weather. Got a bit of a sunburn from all the top-down driving, though.

  Illinois government – What a joke. The whole bunch of them need to be fired. Start over fresh. Maybe if the job paid better and was full-time we’d get some intelligent people to run for office.

 Bob Marley - What a shame he died so young. Incredible music.

 Grand Prix of Monaco – The premier race of this weekend. True racing talent on display here. High speed racing between Armco barriers through the streets of Monte Carlo. Much better than a couple hundred identical laps around an oval track like that other race this weekend.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Dad – Home at last. He came home Tuesday and has been doing well. My sister is staying with my folks now to help out for a bit. Welcome home, Dad.

  Celtics/Bruins/Red Sox - All three teams lost last night. Bruins are done for the season. Celts now face a Game 7. Sox again fail to capitalize on a Toronto loss. Big Papi went 0-7 and left 12 men stranded. Something needs to be done to move him out of the number 3 slot.

   Weather – Some nice days this week but lots of rain as well. More nastiness in store for us tonight, but starting tomorrow we should be entering a dry spell. Good news for the farmers.

 Graduation weekend - It’ll be nice going to work next week with the students all gone.

  Emergency Alert System – While the system itself can be useful, this cable company goes way overboard with it. I’ve been watching TV for about 90 minutes now and these messages have interrupted 9 times (so far). Sooner or later you just stop watching them.

 The Wall – Never know what you’re going to see. Our newest resident bird, The Redhead, or Mama Coonie cooling herself on the concrete.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Red Sox – Looking much better again. They swept the Yankmees and won game one against TB tonight at Fenway.

  Celtics/Bruins – Both teams struggling. Both lost tonight.

 New Toy – ASUS EEE-PC 10.1 inch mini-laptop. Intel Atom processor, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard drive. 9.5 hours (claimed) battery life. Just under 3-lbs. Right about $350. Nice color on the screen (picture doesn’t do it justice). Got it running MLB.com’s player with the Sox game on.

 Weather – Some nice days this week. Sunny and warm. Perfect weather to go topless. (The car, not me.)

  Virus/malware writers – Scum of the earth.

 Dad – Went home today with the advisors from the nursing home to check for possible issues with the apartment vis-à-vis his home recuperation. Everything looked good. He’s slated to go home for good this coming Tuesday.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Red Sox – Despite the last two losses against Tampa Bay, the Sox have turned it around and have been flirting with first place in the AL East.  

  Celtics – Struggling against the Bulls. Doesn’t bode well for the rest of the playoffs, if they even get to the rest of the playoffs. Although I seem to remember this same path last year. UPDATE:  Celts won tonight. They move on. Bulls go home.

  Weather – Typical Illinois Spring. Lots of rain and cool days.

  Hysteria – Swine flu. Not even that bad if, by some exceedingly slim chance, you do happen to catch it. What’s with all the hysteria?

 Dad – Going home in a week or so.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Red Sox – They’ve come back from the basement and are looking like their old selves. Even got a walkoff win tonight thanks to Youk (who else?). UPDATE: They swept the Yankmees and are now 10-0. On to Cleveland and the hapless Indians. 🙂

 Bruins – They’ve swept away the lowly Habs.

 Celtics – After a couple of close games, they kicked Bullbutt in Chicago.

 Weather – Awesome today. My hour-long commute is actually very enjoyable lately with the Z4.

 Dad – Home in May is the goal.

 Note that this was a very good week. First in a long, long time. 🙂

Ups and Downs of the week.

 FIA - The governing body of Formula One finally makes a good decision and lets the results of the season so far stand as they are and allows the diffuser design used by three of the teams. In years past they would have caved in to pressure from Ferrari and the other teams. 

  Red Sox – Their bullpen is looking great and the offense is showing some signs of life, but they’re still in the basement and unable to get clutch hits. UPDATE: They’ve won 4 in a row now and are back at .500. Tampa Bay is in the basement and the Sox are moving up. What a difference a couple of days can make.

 Weather – Mid-70s today. Finally got to drive all the way home with the top down. Spring is here at last.

  Run-flat tires – Good in theory, lousy in practice.

 Dad – Still making progress.